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My readers have to know a few things about this war, The
international War on
Terror. They have to read the news between the lines, from
televisions, to Internet, blogs and pod casts. Not all is black and
white. There are many angles to this war. History repeats itself and
one has to go back to the Roman Empire history and see how the war
on Mediterranean Pirates was conducted, maybe the first modern war
on terror, around 58-48 BC.
The basic line is that we have to
consider the terrorism as the use of death as a political
weapon.
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The war on
terror is a very asymmetrical war: on one side, small and
homogenous groups of terrorists, on the other, organized
societies and conventional armies. The terrorist act against
small groups of people, sometimes only 2-3 people, on a
pyramidal structure.
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The
conventional concept of military operations at the tactical and
strategically level, have been replaced by the threat of
unconventional weapons (chemical, biological, WMD, atomic) and
the terror (civilian targets, suicidal attacks, propaganda,
etc.).
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The concept of
Western civilization and his armies models (citizen army), on a
democratic and open society cannot oppose the fundamentalist and
radical Islamic groups philosophy of death and martyrdoms,
because simply there is a very deep abyss of moral values.
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This war on
terror is a religious war: the Judeo-Christian way of leaving
and democratic value vs. / against the Islamic-Nazi type
terrorist (George Bush, August 07, 2006), highly indoctrinated
by radical Islamists and fundamentalism.
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Our perception
of war is based on the modern concept of Greek and Roman models,
which are difficult and slow to adapt to this asymmetric war on
terror, against small cells of terrorists. As everybody seems to
realize now, we have to win all the time, when the terrorist
have to win or score a direct hit only once.
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This war on
terror can be seen as the the Muslim world
resisting modernism.
With the introduction of modernism (democracy) in societies
there is no place for fundamentalism. Fundamentalism
is the immediate reaction to modernism; it's
the modernism's rejection.
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The terrorist
have no ethical dilemmas. They want only to kill and project
their philosophy by fear.
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The war on terror is a battle of
nerves, minds and technology.
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The terrorist
do not accept any of the Western civilization or democratic
values: modernism, moderation, compromise, the power of
majority, liberty, freedom, prosperity, individual initiative,
the right of opposition, debate, human rights, education.
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The terrorist
ideology is death. Our ideology is life.
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All terrorist
are highly trained (due to the relative easiness and inexpensive
access to technology), homogenous and motivated.
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Nobody can
conduct was against a suicide attack. Se the history and the
first kamikaze attack on American Fleet in the Pacific War,
1944-1945.
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All the time
the terrorist are one step forward. The order forces and
conventional military personnel actions are only reactions,
mainly because the democratic and human values shared by
Judeo-Christian religions and democracies.
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This new war
on terror operates on new areas as Internet, media news, radio,
television. The civilians, for the first time in history, can
participate in the war with their opinions. This is a new type
of war.
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The terrorist
maximize & manipulate the mass media to their advantage.
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There is no
moral, decency or reasons in terrorist attacks.
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The technology
help the terrorist win the war. The news can be seen
instantaneous. The terrorist are finding support in mass media
networks and help from television, satellite telecom and
internet into broadcasting their ideas, ideology and credo.
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The terrorist
operates from within civil organizes and pacifist societies,
taking advantage of all civil freedom in a democratic country:
freedom of movement, freedom of action, access to resources,
anonymity, easy and cheap access to technology.
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Finances are
providing by rich oil-export countries, indifferent to this
trend, that one day will explode in their faces: a change in
regime and an all fundamentalism world.
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The civilian &
democratic societies have to play by the rules and the terrorist
play without rules. This war cannot win operating with “white
gloves”.
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No Geneva
Convention can be applicable to the war on terror. They, the
terrorist, are ruthless. This is not a regular/conventional war,
as much we can say that the war is civilized. No war is
civilized! (The Geneva Convention was
universally adopted, making this instrument the only one signed
by all countries on the face of the Earth).
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The terrorist
make no distinction between armed forces and civilians. They
prefer more civilian casualties, for the pressure this will put
on the elected governments. The terrorist, in all the instances
they can, are using the civilians as human shields.
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The terrorist
avoid direct confrontation with regular military forces and
prefer to melt into civilian societies.
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The war on
terrors will be a very long war, with small advances and
small victories on parts of civilized societies, because the
terrorists are very much hidden in our societies.
As Mao Zedong said
“kill one and you will put terror and fear in one million”,
the terrorist operate form the same psychological base.
Like from the 60’,
when the first outburst of terrorism were “PERFORMED” in the
Western World, again, today only Israel and USA are
mainly fighting this
international waron terror, and
again, alone: all other western countries and governments are deeply
somnolent and indifferent to the high price in human lives and
equipment these two countries are paying. We can count only the
modest contribution of England and his Commonwealth related
countries. France is only seeking her own
political and economical interest. Germany have a very modest
contribution. Russia is coping with the sudden new-rich position,
and is counting the billions from oils exports. China, deep
submerged in is economic boom, and helping in the North Korean
problem, because of the millions of north Korean people might fled
from the poor country to her borders. But I think this trend will change with what
we see and perceive in Iraq, the Iran and North Korea persistent and
innerving nuclear ambitions and the Second
Lebanon War (summer 2006), the first
frontal war on a terrorist organization vs. a conventional
ultra-modern army.
Some countries perceive the war on
terror as a marginal conflict, to far away to reach their territory,
commercial interest or citizens. They are wrong: today we all are
global, and the terrorist as well!
Only in concert with all the
civilized
and democratic governments, the international
war on terror can
be won. When I say all, I mean all the countries. If only one
(country) will be left out of this war, the terrorists will find
shelter, a save heaven there and a source of rearming and supplies
(see Afghanistan example). We have to learn every lesson and adapt.
We have to be pro-active and not only reactive to terrorism
We have to deny to all suspected
terrorist any harbor, any training, any
finances resources, any
telecom facilities and any moral grounds.
The societies have to employ multi
tasking forces, special talents, a good evaluation of risks and stay
vigil. There is no time for innocence! Some (countries) are acting
like corporations and trying to get a free ride on this war on
terror, but this ride will be very expensive. Sooner than later, all
and every country on the face of the earth will face terrorism:
domestic or imported.
Now, more than ever, we need very
strong leaders, as Churchill, Roosevelt, Ben Gurion, Golda Meir,
Sadat or Begin. Maybe an Alexander, Hannibal, Cesar or Napoleon is
missing from our societies for far too long!
"This is not the end. This is not the
beginning of the end. It is just the end of the beginning”
as said by W.
Churchill, after the difficult British victory on the battle of El Alamein
1942-1943.
Hedi Enghelberg
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important
note:
The western media is playing the high hand of
the terrorist groups. Whatever video or message is posted in whatever
obscure web around the world is broadcasted over and over again over the
omnipotent network of CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, BBC and other stations. The
initial posted messages, intended only for few
with internet access, due to the limitations of the terrorist
hardware, is becoming
overnight, in only matters of hours, a global manifest, in the hand of potent western television
and newspapers organizations.
Do we see the same reciprocity in the Arab
media, when the values, news & highlights of Western Culture are broadcasted
over and over again to the Arab and Muslim public? NO!
The western news network are doing a good
job, may a wonderful job in promoting and broadcasting the Muslim and Arab
messages. This is not news for us! We know already who the enemy is and what
we have to do. We don’t need to see the terrorist propaganda in western
media!
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